


deep into the mountain sound

by GerryStAmour



Series: Jupeter requests! (requests CLOSED | 6/17 Completed) [3]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Dancing Lessons, Domestic Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Other, Post-Episode: s03e13-14 Juno Steel and the Mega-Ultrabots of Cyberjustice, Pre-Episode: s03e17-18 Juno Steel and the Heart of it All, Slice of Life, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:42:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27734755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GerryStAmour/pseuds/GerryStAmour
Summary: “What do youmeanI can’t dance?”Peter sounded legitimately offended, and Juno rolled his eye.“That’s not what I said, Ransom,” he said flatly, finishing off his sandwich and putting the plate in the sink. “I said I could teach you someactualsteps.”-In which Juno and Nureyev dance in the kitchen in the wee hours of the night.A request fill for a lovely anon whom I figured out the identity of~*~
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: Jupeter requests! (requests CLOSED | 6/17 Completed) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2024980
Comments: 38
Kudos: 144





	deep into the mountain sound

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bluemoodblue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluemoodblue/gifts).



> _**Anonymous said:** Jupeter dancing? Dancing, perhaps? Fancy dancing or in-the-kitchen dancing or that kind of slowdancing that ends up being more of a shufflehug? Can I interest you in Juno and Peter dancing?_
> 
> So I bullied Blue until she confessed which request was her's because I wanted to gift it to her properly so. [confetti]
> 
> This fic has ZERO plot, it is a pure fluffy slice of life nonsense, which was a struggle to write but alas~*~
> 
> Enjoy!

“What do you  _ mean  _ I can’t dance?”

Peter sounded legitimately offended, and Juno rolled his eye. 

“That’s not what I said, Ransom,” he said flatly, finishing off his sandwich and putting the plate in the sink. “I said I could teach you some  _ actual _ steps.”

“I know how to dance!” Peter pouted, crossing his arms and leaning against the counter.

“Yeah, I know you know how to dance, but I was gonna—you know what? Never mind,” Juno said with a huff, his cheeks hot as he turned away to leave the kitchen. “It was a stupid idea.”

“Love, wait, wait,” Peter said softly, grabbing Juno’s wrist and pulling him back around to face him. “What is this about?”

“Nothing,” Juno grumbled, and when Peter didn’t let go, he hurriedly said, “Nothing! Okay? I just wanted to spend time with you that wasn’t our couple’s therapy talks or a training exercise or a heist, okay?”

Peter blinked down at him, and his fingers went slack enough that Juno would have been able to pull away if he wanted to. He didn’t want to, so he just added, “A-and I was thinking maybe I could teach you some steps before Buddy and Vespa eventually get married.”

“ _ Oh _ ,” Peter said softly and Juno rolled his eye again.

“Yeah,  _ oh _ , but it’s fine. I hurt your feelings, or whatever, so I’m just gonna go—”

“You didn’t hurt my feelings, love,” Peter said soothingly, stooping to brush a kiss over Juno’s brow. “I apologise, I was thoughtless with my refusals. I would love for you to teach me.”

“Don’t wanna anymore,” Juno complained, sulking when Peter wrapped his arms around his shoulders and pressed their bodies flush together. 

“Please, my love?” Peter pushed, shuffling slowly to the music playing out of the tiny radio that was sitting on the counter.

Juno rolled his eye and sighed. “Fine,” he said with a sniff and pulled back. “Okay, well first off, you’re holding me all wrong…”

And like that, Juno began walking Peter through different dance steps, even a few that they likely wouldn’t do outside of some elaborate cover for a heist, until they were laughing and breathless.

It had been late when they started, and so it had to be at least three in the morning ship-time when they slowed down. The music had mellowed to something slow and gentle, and Juno really began to feel what time it was. Juno sighed and rested his ear against Peter’s chest to listen to his steady heartbeat, sighing happily when the thief tightened his arms around him.

“Thank you, love,” Peter murmured gently as they shuffled in a small circle around the kitchen. “This was nice.”

“Yeah,” Juno replied with a soft chuckle.

“You’re a very good dancer,” Peter added and Juno’s smile turned wistful.

“Had a good teacher,” he replied.

“You’ve said,” Peter hummed a bit, and Juno jolted a bit. That dance at Zolotovna’s ball seemed so long ago, it almost felt like a completely different life. If Juno was honest, he considered it to be before the Carte Blanche chapter of his life.

That chapter, in his mind, started the moment when he hesitated in the door of the hotel room. When Juno looked back at Peter, watched him sleeping—finding out Peter  _ hadn’t _ actually been asleep had kept Juno up for days with guilt—and chose to keep walking out was the start of… a lot. Then, when Peter had allowed him into his room after stealing the Globe, had listened to his apology and then, wordlessly, reached out to hold his hand… It felt like a conclusion. It felt like he could breathe again, that everything significant had been figured out and was okay.

Being reminded that Juno had already blown Peter off once about where he’d learned to dance made him realize that he hadn’t actually said much about Benten at all. Many of his late-night talks with Peter had to do with  _ them _ , as Nureyev and Juno, and where traumas intersected with their current feelings and hold-ups. The good things Juno remembered about Benten never really came up.

Benten would have  _ hated _ that, and not in the expected Sibling Petulance sort of way. He would have been pissed right off to find out that after eight months of almost nightly talks, Peter only knew about his death and his tangential involvement in the mess created by Jack Takano. For the first time, Juno hated that Benten’s memory had been reduced to that more than he hated the idea of talking about him and the bitter sadness that came with missing him.

“My brother was a dancer,” Juno said quietly, and if it wasn’t for the slightest twitch in Peter’s arms around him, he would have thought he said it  _ too _ quietly. “He did dance lessons and stuff after school, and even saved up for his own studio.”

Peter only hummed, and Juno smiled. 

Eight months ago, or two years ago when Juno met him, he would have taken that hum to be dismissive or  _ something _ . It would have started a fight, with Juno getting his back up and snapping, and Peter giving up entirely and letting it fester between them. By now, Juno had learned that it was merely Peter making noise in a place he thought he was expected to say something, but had no words to do so.

It was one of those things Juno had learned that made it infinitely clear that things wouldn’t have worked out between them when Peter first offered him the stars.

“He’d always been a dancer, even when we were little, before he actually learned,” Juno continued, laughing a bit. “He helped out around his one studio, like cleaning and whatever, and he could join any classes he wanted.” 

“Did you go with him?” Peter asked, and Juno snorted as he pulled back to smile up at him.

“ _ No _ ,” Juno said. “I only ended up learning because he needed someone to practice the partner stuff with.”

Peter laughed, and Juno felt his stomach swoop at the sound. It was rare for Peter to laugh so openly, especially outside the privacy of one of their quarters. Juno smiled fondly up at him and they held each other’s gazes for several moments. 

“I—” Peter started before closing his mouth and exhaling, visibly struggling with the words he wanted to say. Then he said, “I wish that I could have met your brother.”

Juno considered the slick way Peter talked to everyone else, the way he could disappear and reappear without a sound, that annoying thing he did with his teeth when he was thinking through a problem, and that _ awful  _ instrument. Then he considered how Peter preened and spent longer on his appearance than even Benten ever used to and snorted.

“He would’ve hated you, babe,” Juno laughed and laughed harder at the stunned expression on Peter’s face. “Don’t take it personally; he never liked any of my partners.  _ Especially _ my boyfriends.”

“Wow,” Peter said flatly, before smiling and leaning close to Juno’s face. “The point stands, however.”

Juno grinned and lifted up onto his toes a bit to steal a kiss with a sigh. When he dropped back onto his heels, Peter was smirking a bit. “What?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

“So, I’m your boyfriend, then?” Peter asked and Juno choked, his face hot as he looked away.

“I mean—we don’t have to  _ call  _ it anything like that, I was just saying—it’s not that big a deal, okay?” Juno stammered, cringing a bit. “I mean, it’s not a big deal if you don’t want it to be. I’m—”

“Juno. Dear,” Peter interrupted in that gently exasperated tone that Juno  _ wished _ he could be annoyed at. Peter stopped their slow shuffle and held Juno in his arms, cupping his cheek to bring his gaze back up to meet his. With a smile, Peter asked, “Why don’t you  _ ask _ me what I want?”

“I—” Juno started, and it sounded nearly accusatory, defensive already for no good reason. Cutting himself off, he took a deep breath and muttered, “Because it seems dumb to ask this far along…”

“Well, it’s not dumb, and I would be absolutely amongst the stars if you considered me your boyfriend,” Peter said with a delighted laugh, leaning down to steal a kiss.

“Are you two  _ still _ being gross in here?” Vespa barked from the doorway, startling a yelp from Juno as the two of them jumped apart. “It’s four in the  _ goddamn  _ morning.”

“Yeah! Well!” Juno shouted back, defensive without any real reason. The kitchen was a communal space, they lived aboard the Carte Blanche and had just as much right to use it, and they were fully clothed and behaving themselves. “What are  _ you _ doing up?!”

Vespa walked over to the counter with a sour face to start making her breakfast. “This is when I start my day, moron. Unlike  _ some _ layabouts, I have a full-time  _ job _ on this ship,” she snapped, and it was Peter’s hand on his lower-back that stopped Juno from rising to the jab.

“Perhaps we should go to bed, love, hm?” Peter suggested and Vespa gagged.

“ _ Please _ get the hell outta here before I barf,” she grumbled.

Peter tangled their fingers together, which never failed to have butterflies swarming in Juno’s stomach, and began to lead him out of the kitchen. Juno happily followed his boyfriend, and he knew he was grinning like a dope at that—his  _ boyfriend _ .

“Oh, and Steel!”

Juno stopped to look back at Vespa, and she was squinting at him from across the room. “What?” he asked when she didn’t say anything right away.

“You better go  _ straight _ to bed,” she growled, and Juno’s face went almost painfully hot as Peter cleared his throat uncomfortably. “None of that  _ ‘poetry’ _ crap this early in the morning, or I’m turning off the life support in your room, you hear me?”

“You w—”

“Loud  _ and _ clear, Doctor!” Peter confirmed, talking over a snappy comment that would have definitely caused an argument, which would have landed all three of them in hot water with Buddy. Then, before anything else could be said between the two hotheads, Peter began to drag Juno down the hall.

It was only a few minutes later when they stood outside Juno’s quarters while the former detective shuffled his feet nervously.

“Thank you,” Peter said suddenly, and he was smiling when Juno looked up at him. “For teaching me how to dance, that is.”

“Yeah, no problem, Ransom,” Juno replied with a sheepish shrug, and then haltingly asked, “Do you wanna sleep here? In my room? With me?”

He felt stupid about being so nervous asking—it wasn’t like they hadn’t been sleeping in each other’s rooms for at least the past three months, and fooling around for two of those three. For some reason, however, asking Peter to stay over  _ just _ to sleep—no talking until they were exhausted and raw, or doing exactly what Vespa threatened them  _ not _ to do four in the morning—seemed different. Significant. It changed the expectations and Juno wasn’t sure what that meant.

But then Peter smiled and nodded, and all of that anxiety slipped away. 

“Lead the way, love,” he said warmly and allowed Juno to pull him through the door.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [Tumblr](HTTP://gerrystamour.tumblr.com) or [Twitter](HTTP://twitter.com/petootnureyev)!
> 
> I also have a server for 21yo+ fans of TPP, which include Y2K babies! [Click here for more information](https://tppadultserver.carrd.co/)!


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